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Iraqi lawmakers stall on oil law
Evening Standard 13 Aug 2008
Legislation allowing foreign oil companies to bid for work on Iraqi oil fields is bogged down in that country's parliament, with no indication when even short-term contracts may be awarded.
Oil majors Royal Dutch Shell, BP and Exxon Mobil had hoped to sign short-term service contracts by the end of June, a deadline that passed without comment from the Oil Ministry.
US government officials are also in the dark about the contracts. “I'm not sure if they are going to go through,” Charles Ries, economics officer at the US embassy in Baghdad, told the Wall Street Journal.
The service contracts had been designed to keep Iraq's battered oil fields from crumbling further while the tender process began. About 35 companies have bid in a first round for separate, longer-term contracts that the ministry hopes to award next year.
